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What to Do After a Car Accident in Texas
Stop, check for injuries, and call 911.
Texas law requires the first two, and the third creates the official record your claim will stand on.
Leaving an injury crash is a felony in Texas, and the duties at the scene are specific.
What you do in the following week matters nearly as much as the crash itself.
Questions about a crash that already happened? Call (888) 713-6653 for a free review. You Win or It's Free.
After a Texas Crash, at a Glance
- Texas law requires you to stop, render aid, and exchange information; leaving an injury scene is a felony
- Call 911 for any crash with injury, death, or a vehicle too damaged to drive away
- Photograph everything before the vehicles move, and see a doctor the same day
- Your CR-3 crash report is purchased online through TxDOT's crash records system
- Two years to file the claim; the evidence disappears far sooner
At the Scene: What Texas Law Requires and What Protects You
1. Stop, Stay, and Help
Texas Transportation Code § 550.021 requires every driver in an injury crash to stop immediately, determine whether anyone needs help, and stay until the legal duties are met, including the duty to render reasonable aid.[1] Leaving a crash involving serious injury is a third-degree felony. Stay until police release you.
2. Call 911
Texas requires immediate notice to police when a crash involves injury, death, or a vehicle damaged badly enough that it cannot be safely driven away.[2] The responding officer's CR-3 report becomes the first official account of fault, and a crash settled with a handshake has no record at all when the other driver's story changes next week.
3. Photograph Before Anything Moves
If it is safe, capture the vehicles where they came to rest, the damage to each, skid marks, debris, signals, and the roadway. A slow video walking the scene picks up what photos miss. Texas law favors clearing drivable vehicles from the travel lanes, so the record has to be made first.
4. Exchange Information and Collect Witnesses
Name, phone, insurer, policy number, and plate for every driver. Then find the witnesses before they drive off, because an independent account of the light or the lane change is often the most valuable evidence a disputed Texas crash produces.
5. Say Nothing About Fault
Check on the other driver, be decent, and skip the apologies. Texas's proportionate responsibility rule reduces your recovery by your share of fault and ends the claim above 50 percent, so a scene-side "I'm sorry" has a price. The math is on our Texas 51 percent bar page.
The First Week: Where Claims Are Quietly Won or Lost
See a doctor the same day. Adrenaline hides injuries, and the serious ones, concussions, disc damage, internal bleeding, often declare themselves later. Same-day care protects your health and ties the injury to the crash in writing. A gap in treatment becomes the adjuster's first argument.
Report to your own insurer, and only yours. Your policy requires prompt notice, and your PIP coverage, if it was never rejected in writing, pays early bills regardless of fault. The other driver's insurer will call asking for a recorded statement. You owe them nothing, and the request comes early precisely because your injuries are not fully known yet.
Preserve what fades. Intersection and doorbell cameras overwrite in days. If a commercial vehicle was involved, its electronic data runs on retention schedules measured in weeks. A preservation letter early is worth more than a year of negotiation later.
How to Get Your Texas Crash Report
The investigating officer files the CR-3 crash report, and Texas makes it available for purchase online through TxDOT's Crash Records Information System, usually within days of completion. It records the officer's diagram, the statements, any citations, and the contributing factors checked.
Read it as soon as it posts. Officers work fast at chaotic scenes, and a transposed direction of travel or a missing witness is far easier to address in the first weeks than after the insurer has priced the claim on the error.
The Deadlines on a Texas Crash Claim
Texas gives you two years from the crash to file an injury lawsuit under Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 16.003, and the same two-year period governs the vehicle damage claim.[3] Two situations shorten everything: a crash with a government vehicle triggers formal notice deadlines that can run in months or weeks under a city charter, and a fatal crash moves the family to a wrongful death clock that runs from the date of death.
The insurer's clock is faster than all of them. Claims get priced early, on whatever record exists, which is the reason the first week's steps matter more than the second year's.
When a Lawyer Changes the Outcome, and When You Can Skip One
A no-injury fender-bender with clear fault is a claim most Texans can handle alone, and we say so. The calculus flips when you were hurt, when fault is contested, when a commercial truck or government vehicle is involved, or when the offer arrives before the treatment ends. Those are the cases where early preservation, coverage mapping, and refusing the recorded statement change the number, and where our Texas car accident lawyers earn their fee. If the at-fault driver carried the state minimum, our page on Texas's 30/60/25 minimums explains where the rest of the recovery comes from.